Castle and fireworks inside a heart on a leg

You will not believe the state of Mrs Pargeter's boarding house this week. Forty-one guests, one temperamental boiler, and a painted castle she has been working on across the landing wall since the Whitsun rain, because the hotel up the coast wouldn't take a single one of the children. Don't laugh. It is a proper castle, with a tower like a sharpened pencil and an arched gate you could drive a cart through, and she has done the sky behind it the colour of a bruise, which the Harker boy says is the best colour in the world.

On Saturday the council finally let the fireworks go off from the end of the pier. I was sat on the cold step by the bins with a cup of tea going stone cold, watching the green and orange rockets break over the bay. Mr Okonedo from number six came out in his dressing gown and said they looked like someone had shaken out a box of marbles. Then a small winged figure came over the rooftops, trailing sparks behind her like she was drawing a line through the dark. Maybe it was a kite with a lamp on it. Maybe it was the gin in my tea.

Mrs Pargeter came out with her paint-stained apron and watched it too. She said she had painted the figure on the wall in March, before anyone had told her the pier would have a display this year, and she couldn't say how she had known. Then she went back in to check the boiler, which had gone out again.

Come on the Thursday train if you can. Bring your own cup, mine's cracked, and I'll take you up to the landing to see the wall. The sparkles in the top corner are still a bit wet, so mind your sleeve.